Huzzah to the first Review Roundup of our brave new 2010!
Consider this a Mega-Review Roundup: seventeen -- count them, seventeen -- tomes awaiting your amusement/derision/indifference.
Some are excellent (Libba Bray's Going Bovine, Antony Beevor's D-Day), some are tepid (Patricia Cornwell's The Scarpetta Factor, Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshembaum's Unscientific America). And one in particular made me so angry I would've welcomed a chance to challenge the author to a duel (David Owen's Green Metropolis). I'm up for it if you are, Mr. Owen.
And yes, you sharp-eyed readers will notice that some of these books were featured in my 10 best books of 2009 for book clubs list. The difference is that I put the muzzle on when writing about the books in that piece and kept my personal opinions out (or as much as someone like me can possibly manage).
These are the unmuzzled reviews. Brace for impact.
Leap in, wallow about, and indulge your love for all things bookish.
Books featured in Review Roundup, Part 1 (and don't neglect Part 2 and Part 3):
Complaint: From Minor Moans to Principled Protests by Julian Baggini
The Manga Guide to Molecular Biology by Masaharu Takemura, illustrated by Sakura
Going Bovine by Libba Bray
America Eats! On the Road with the WPA: The Fish Fries, Box Supper Socials, and Chitlin Feasts that Define Real American Food by Pat Willard
Bloodroot by Bill Loehfelm
Title: Complaint: From Minor Moans to Principled Protests
Author: Julian Baggini
Genre: Cranky short non-fiction that would have probably been better off as a longish article
In 160 pages, Julian Baggini packs in more whining than a swarm of mosquitoes in August. The book is a “meta-complaint”: Mr. Baggini contends that “people tend to complain about the wrong things for the wrong reasons and that, as a result, complaining has been debased.” When done just right, he says, complaining can be a useful and powerful force.
Mr. Baggini’s ideas are sound, but many of his examples of incorrect complaints – the idea that the American or U.K. diet is worse now than in the past – are more the result of irresponsible media reporting than a naturally whining populace. Mr. Baggini complains about irresponsible scientific information, but contributes to the problem by discussing the results of a complaint survey he conducted in a highly unscientific manner. The survey results are, in the end, largely useless.
Atheistic conservatives will find much to admire in Mr. Baggini. Christians and liberals, however, will find themselves irritable bedfellows, complaining, in turn, about various aspects of Mr. Baggini's assertions. I guess that should make Complaint eminently bipartisan: both Republicans and Democrats will be equally annoyed, just not at the same time. When Mr. Baggini presents his final solution to the problem – the adaptation of a pluralistic society – it sounds astoundingly like good, old-fashioned libertarianism. Which is just about as likely to happen as a roomful of elderly ladies failing to complain about their health.
Verdict?: I stand by my choice of Complaint as an excellent book club pick. In fact, I'd say it's better read with other people than all by your lonesome. That way you have a captive audience when you're moved to complain about it.
Title: The Manga Guide to Molecular Biology
Author: Masaharu Takemura, illustrated by Sakura
Genre: Manga meets BioSci 101
A single tortured cry will escape the lips of every thirtysomething biochem major who sees this book: “Why, oh why couldn’t this have been written when I was in college?”
This biology/manga hybrid follows the sexy rebel Rin Natsukawa (she wears heels with short shorts) and her innocent-looking frilly-dressed friend, Ami Kasuga. The two are failing Molecular Biology 101 and must attend make-up classes with the genial, balding Professor Moro. The classes are held in Dr. Moro’s virtual inside-the-body reality machine and the girls’ tour guide is the disturbingly attractive and nerdy Marcus. The classes progress from absolute zero (“What is a cell?”) to the intricacies of DNA, RNA, and the brave new world of cloned animals and genetic recombination technology.
The pictures and text are clear and uncluttered and even the most complex concepts are explained in a simple and straightforward manner. Some readers may buck at the tired old cliché of the sexy and stupid girls being, yet again, portrayed as dumber than a prokaryote when it comes to science, but, really, it’s not worth quibbling over.
Verdict?: Forget your 23rd edition, $70, 10 pound Biology text -- as an entertaining and painless introduction or review of the basic concepts of biology, this book is priceless.
Title: Going Bovine
Author: Libba Bray
Genre: Publishers Weekly listed this book as Children's Fiction. Children's?! Even in my most expansive moments I wouldn't be able to bring myself to call this a Children's Fiction selection. Even Young Adult might be a stretch. Nearly Adult would be a better description.
16-year-old Cameron Smith is a stoner with a perfect cheerleader twin sister, a work obsessed scientist dad (who, Cameron jokes, writes for Scientific Masturbation Quarterly since he can only produce “articles of solo pleasure") and an English teaching Mom who is never home. Cameron is the school loser until he’s diagnosed with an incurable disease (hint: take a look at the book’s cover) and admitted to the hospital.
While waiting to die, he gets a visit from Dulcie, a pink-haired, fishnet-clad, mini-kilted, breastplate wearing angel who tells him his only hope for a cure is to find Dr. X. Accompanied by a fellow patient, Gonzo, a Star Fighter obsessed dwarf, he sets off on a quest that is equal parts Don Quixote and Discworld. Along the way, they encounter fanatically happy cults, a Star Fighter-quoting gnome, multiple Schrodinger cat references (which just proves my theory that no science-themed novel or movie in the history of the world is complete without at least one reference to Schrodinger's cat and/or Pandora's Box -- hey, even Avatar had one), a Harry Potter SPEW allusion, and the answer to that most burning of all questions: are we crazy, or is it the unattainable-ideal holding world that's crazy?
Verdict?: I haven't unleashed my Best Books of 2009 list yet (partly because I was waiting around for a book scheduled for release in the dying days of 2009 -- it was worth the wait, by the way) but I guarantee you this: Going Bovine is on the list. Funny, sad, unexpected, it's a great read.
Title: America Eats! On the Road with the WPA: The Fish Fries, Box Supper Socials, and Chitlin Feasts that Define Real American Food
Author: Pat Willard
Genre: Foodish writing
In the mid-1930s, the Federal Writers’ Project employed thousands of laid-off writers through the Works Progress Administration. One of the WPA’s projects was America Eats!, a close-up look at the role food played in American society and culture. Most of America Eats! never made it into print. In this book, Ms. Willard reproduces many of the original pieces alongside her own attempts to relive the church suppers and potlucks described by the original authors.
Ms. Willard gives the endeavor a hearty stab, but even the kindest eye would be hard pressed not to get just a little annoyed at her (mostly) suppressed hoity attitude towards what the unwashed masses of Americans eat. The finest parts of the book aren’t Ms. Willard’s at all, but the often anonymous pieces. The writing of these uncelebrated authors is unselfconscious, earthy, witty, and full of the joy of fund-raising dinners, rural fairs, and crabapple jelly. For those of us who grew up in just this kind of world, it's a trip down memory lane. And for those people who didn't, it must be like gazing in wonder at the obscure rituals of an isolated South American tribe.
Ms. Willard’s thoughts are emphatically those of an outsider. It’s tough not to wish that a writer more sympathetic to the cause of plain American food as something to eat rather than study had written this book – Jane and Michael Stern, say, or the late, great Laurie Colwin. Still, it’s worth reading, just to relive the long ago joys of the American table.
Verdict?: If you are at all sympathetic to the cause of traditional America, get this book and flip straight to page 66. There you'll find a narrative by a Ms. Iola Thomas from Iowa titled "Threshers' Dinner." It's worth the price of the entire book.
Title: Bloodroot
Author: Bill Loehfelm
Genre: Melodramatic there-are-dark-things-in-my-past thriller
“When blood laws and human laws contradict,” one of the characters in Bloodroot tells the narrator, Kevin Curran, “blood laws rule.” Kevin has always been aware of his blood ties to his troubled, heroin-addicted younger brother, Danny. Although he hasn’t seen Danny for years at the beginning of the novel, he still feels guilty and torn about Danny’s descent into addiction and self-destruction: “People tell me letting Danny go was the right decision and I pretend to believe them. I play along with the idea that I let him go when, in reality, he left me….But I could have done a better job of chasing him. I’m his older brother. It was my job to catch him.” But when Danny abruptly reappears back in his life, off the drugs but involved with ruthless men and on a lawless personal quest of vengeance of his own, Kevin discovers just what letting blood laws rule means and what it may cost, both for him and for Danny.
Kevin is a mediocre college history teacher with few ambitions and even fewer friends. When he is reunited with Danny, he is happy, even when it becomes apparent that Danny is engaged in some decidedly underhanded goings-on. It’s his brother, right? Kevin rationalizes. After having lost his brother for so long, Kevin doesn’t want to jeopardize the relationship now. Soon, Kevin discovers that his brother has more than shady friends to reveal – Danny tells Kevin that they are not blood brothers at all, that he was adopted by their parents from the Bloodroot Children’s Hospital, an institution infamous for abusing and neglecting abandoned and orphaned children.
When Danny hears that the history department chair of Kevin’s college wants to turn Bloodroot into a museum, he is determined to stop it from happening. And he wants Kevin’s help in doing this, whatever the cost.
Bloodroot is just the sort of tome to appeal to fans of Michael Connelly or James Patterson. It features strong, largely honorable male characters, a bit – but not too much – thrilling terror, and just a hint of romance and sex. Mr. Loehfelm deftly weaves the story of Kevin and Danny’s parents, their mother’s slowly progressing Alzheimer’s disease, and their father’s care and love for her in and out of the more horrific portions of the narrative. The story wobbles somewhat on a few plot points and some conversations, particularly those between Kevin and his new girlfriend, Kelsey Reyes, seem more the stuff of primetime dramas than serious novels. It’s tough not to wish that Mr. Loehfelm had spent more time on the Bloodroot Children’s Hospital parts of the story and less on the development of Kevin and Danny’s relationship. Despite that, Bloodroot is a solid addition to the thriller genre.
Verdict?: Nice for a blustery weekend afternoon read by the fire. Don't expect big things -- you won't get them. But if it's a bit of undemanding shivery entertainment you're after, Bloodroot is as good as pick as any.
Oh, come on -- why stop now? Humor your bookish sweet tooth and go on to Review Roundup, Part 2, featuring Green Metropolis, A Truth Universally Acknowledged, 2666, The Authorized Ender Companion, The Complete Fairy Tales, and The Magician's Elephant.
Comments
Michelle - How do you decide what books to review? Just curious.
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